A 30-minute news programme, hosted by Richard Whiteley and Geoff Druett. The first segment features Home Secretary Leon Brittan, in discussion around a ‘Top People’s Pay Award’, how oppositional parties have responded to this, and how this may worsen the Teacher’s Pay Disputes. Segment two sees a featurette on Bradford Chief Executive Gordon Moore and the challenges he faces in a politically ambiguous constituency. Footage in and around Bradford is shown, as well as interviews with multiple...

A 30-minute news programme, hosted by Richard Whiteley and Geoff Druett. The first segment features Home Secretary Leon Brittan, in discussion around a ‘Top People’s Pay Award’, how oppositional parties have responded to this, and how this may worsen the Teacher’s Pay Disputes. Segment two sees a featurette on Bradford Chief Executive Gordon Moore and the challenges he faces in a politically ambiguous constituency. Footage in and around Bradford is shown, as well as interviews with multiple Bradford councillors. The third segment sees an end of term political roundup, in which main headlines of the week are discussed; Geoffrey Smith from The Times features here. Lastly, ‘Calendar Comment’ covers letters sent in by viewers of the programme reading their political concerns and responses to segments of the show. A government announcement about a ‘Top People’s Pay Award’ has left opposition parties unhappy, and with ammunition to fire. The Tories already had a bad performance in the aggregate opinion polls, and back-benchers are putting on as brave a face as possible on this pay award. The Home Secretary Leon Brittan features to talk about this new policy. He does not believe that the gov have made a mistake with timing, in terms of correlation with the Teachers’ Pay disputes, and goes on to argue that this is not an out of the blue choice by the government, but rather this has been an ongoing issue that needed addressing. Brittan suggests that Teachers Union leaders are foolish to not engage in negotiations to restructure and create opportunity; that these discussions are necessary to solving the Teachers dispute. Believes that career structures, and pay in line with this, is necessary to uphold a level of professionalism and efficiency in jobs being done. Acknowledges that the reception of this may initially be negative, but believes that this is why it's important to consider the arguments and reasons behind this. He argues that this gives the party an electoral favour, as to run from the problems will not increase their popularity. Tensions between civil servants and ministers in town and city halls can be seen, between permanent officers, civil service and local gov, and elected councillors. In Bradford, this tension falls to their Chief Executive Gordon Moore; he has a love-hate relationship with his councillors, that has only grown more intense. Druett goes to Bradford to see how Moore meets these executive challenges. Footage in various spots across Bradford, with voiceover from Druett. The newsreel shows Moore working for the day as a bin-man. He thinks it’s important to see what his colleagues do rather than just listening to arguments; hands on experience and insight are very important for his own work. Moore’s job is to bring the majority political will into day-to-day actions; however, Bradford has seen a hung council with no overall political control over the last years. Moore’s task to extract working agreements from the political stalemate, and find an agreement for all three main parties, proves difficult for him. He thinks that, in this kind of situation, he cannot please any one party. Footage of a Chief Executive meeting with Labour and Tory councillors sharing their ideas and opinions, with multiple councillors interviewed in line with this. Bradford’s electors are yet to make up their minds about the party in political control, whose philosophy Moore will then try to translate into policy. Until then, Moore continues to deal with the hung council and toe the line between parties. The end-of-term political report section sees Geoffrey Smith from the Times discuss the main themes of the week. He is not impressed by the ‘Top People’s Pay Award’, believing it will be seen in retrospect as a major governmental mistake and will make the Teacher’s Pay dispute harder. Regarding economic policy as a whole, he is unsure if the government will continue to lose poll popularity over this, but suggests that the battle over public expenditure may not be as severe as previous years due to a contingency reserve in chancellors plans, and more money through the sale of public assets into private sectors. He is doubtful that the Government would use money to expand public investments. Labour party agenda for their upcoming conference is discussed, with many demanding the re-instatement of dismissed miners. He believes Kinnock has done well so far to project his party as welcoming, but has two problems ahead; how to manage his upcoming party conference regarding the re-instating of miners, and how to adjust Labour policies in certain fields. The final segment, Calendar Comment, sees letters sent by viewers of the programme discussed. Topics of the letters link back to the previous episode, in which the debate about Parliamentary television and Richard Wainwright’s bill to change voting systems are suggested. Presented by RICHARD WHITELEY, GEOFF DRUETT With RT. HON. LEON BRITTAN MP, GEOFFREY SMITH Film Camera MUSTAFA HAMMURI, PETER JACKSON Film Sound, STAN ELLISON, ROGER DAVIES Film Editor STEVE GANNON Dubbing Mixer ALAN BEDWARD Film Director GARY WARD Editorial Assistant JULIE KIRKBRIDE Studio Director NICK SALMON Executive Producer GRAHAM IRONSIDE Yorkshire Television Ltd 1985 YORKSHIRE TELEVISION Production